


Sunlight

by Anonymous_Creator



Category: Critical Role (Web Series) RPF
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Meditation, self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 07:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16424915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous_Creator/pseuds/Anonymous_Creator
Summary: Taliesin finds himself at odds with his own, anxious thoughts. Thankfully he's had a lot of practice with rearranging his brain.





	Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> This is weird. You're here too. Welcome to my weird, weirdling. Enjoy. 
> 
> Please don't mention the weird to the real life humans. That would just be a bit *too* weird.

Taliesin stood in his bedroom, stared into his closet with the Tardis painted doors, and wondered what life would be like if he burned all his clothes.

He hit the bed with a thump as he tried to process that thought. He knew his brain was screwing with him, of course. His clothes were a careful curation of various ways to broadcast to the world who and what he was, or wanted to be perceived as, in any moment.

From goth, to steampunk, to a selection that lived in a locked luggage nested under the few deplorable polos, to the geek emblazoned t-shirts, he was whoever he needed to be in this closet.

Why on earth had he thought of burning it to the ground?

“I really need to take a vacation,” Taliesin said as he collapsed backward on the bed, his feet dangling over the edge.

The ceiling offered a much more boring, tranquil view of plaster swirls that were in vogue nearly a quarter century ago and no one had bothered to scrape away in the last decade.

Taliesin groaned and rolled over, clutched a pillow, and curled onto his side.

“Fuck.”

His brain was in a real mood. He didn’t want to deal with this.

Burn it all. Start over. Run away, take the last of his pay check and get in a car and drive.

Right. Brain is malfunctioning. Need to deal with that.

There were preferred options but none that could be invoked before a game night. A certain amount of happy was permissible in game, but fixing this kind of brain fuckery required a heavier touch.

“An this to shall pass,” Taliesin said softly, still wrapped half around a pillow like it was a stuffed teddy bear. He took a deep breath with seven counts, held it a beat, and breathed out for seven more.

He could move to Seattle. Goths love Seattle.

Taliesin groaned and threw the pillow against the headboard.

“My life,” he said in a commanding voice to an empty room, “does not, empirically, suck. YOU suck, brain. Dear God.” Taliesin rolled onto his back and struck the bed a few times with his fist; theatric emphasis for an audience of none.

He felt the draw to punch the thoughts down, to confront, contort, smash his mental energy into this and make it Just. Fucking. Stop.

He couldn’t. It was a war of attrition, and he knew from bitter experience that his darker, idiotic nature was better provisioned.

“Fuuuuucck.” Taliesin said in a long, drawn out growl of a word before launching himself off the bed with a push.

He walked swiftly into the living room, cast around for something, a distraction, a comfort, and shook his head. Nothing could possibly appeal to him in this state. His stomach felt like a rolling pit of vipers had taken up residence. When had he last eaten?

Taliesin stopped in front of the archway into the kitchen. A pile of dishes in the sink greeted him and he recalled he’d made the mess less than an hour ago. The idea of tidying it up made his head spin.

Just drive away. Let it go. Be someone new.

Right. At least my brain isn’t actively trying to kill me today.

Don’t want to meditate, would probably help, could I? Can I?

Will I?

Fuck.

He went out to the garden, found a chair, and made an effort to sit calmly in it rather than collapse dramatically.

The sun was too bright, the chickens were hoping for food, there was construction three blocks over.

There was a slight breeze that promised a hint of cool midnight air, hours from now.

Taliesin rested his arms on the armrest of the weather weary wicker chair, closed his eyes, and breathed.

He waited for the wind.

His feet felt sore, too much walking with his lovely lady yesterday evening. A thought. A half pleasant thought. His head hurt. A feeling, unpleasant. A headache. A litany of minor and major worries, memories, aches, sensations.

He waited for the wind. When it brushed against him he focused on that, only that. The feel of it slipping past his cheek, drawing warmth from his face before fading, returning, strong, gone.

I could run away. A thought. Unpleasant, Avoidance.

The wind flipped the edge of his shirt against his neck for a moment, catching his full attention.

He stayed with the wind. Stayed with the feel of the skin on his cheek when it fled, when it returned.

His breathing slowed. His body felt heavy, relaxed. A feeling, pleasant.

The wind faded away. The sun felt warm on his cheek instead. A growing heat that radiated through him.

For a period of some unknown time, he didn’t think of anything at all. He was warm sunlight on a cheek. And then he wasn’t.

Sunlight existed. Wind existed. Eventually, inevitably, he realized he again existed.

Thoughts. Just thoughts and feelings. Every thought and feeling no more weighted than the next.The sky is blue, my left hip is achy, I’d like to run away, the sun is warm on my cheek.

He sighed, then took a proper moment to take a few deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Just another day. Me and my brain. Don’t feed the gremlins -- a thought, unpleasant.

He shook his head, stood up, and headed back inside to change for the game.

 


End file.
